The Download: AI’s refusal problem and weight-loss drug side effects

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.

We’re putting too much faith in AI’s ability to say no

Today’s AI models are trained to refuse a vast number of prompts. If you ask your chatbot how to poison a colleague or how to tie a noose, chances are it’ll turn you down. But refusal fails, sometimes horrifically.

Some people are attempting to use AI to hone biological pathogens and build autonomous drone swarms. Sooner or later, failed refusals may result in global calamity. What’s more, relying on refusal means drawing a line between what a model should obey and what it must disobey.

Governments will also get to draw their own lines, potentially restricting free speech. At the same time, the capabilities that make AI useful could also make it dangerous. If we want it to help cure cancer, AI needs genetics expertise that could also produce bioweapons.

Read the full story on the formidable tradeoffs of AI refusal.

—Arthur Holland Michel

We’re still figuring out the side effects of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs

This week my colleague Antonio Regalado reported on new research suggesting GLP-1 drugs may slow biological aging. It’s the latest in a raft of potential benefits associated with these drugs. But there are also some weird side effects.

The most common are gastrointestinal, but researchers are also investigating possible links to hair loss, nail disorders and damage to the nerves behind the eye. 

Here’s what we know so far about the side effects of weight-loss drugs.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Envision Energy and its global ambitions for wind power

China is installing wind turbines faster than any other country. One of its leading manufacturers, Envision Energy, is integrating renewable energy into data centers, using wind turbines to generate power and batteries to store it on-site.

Recently, it became the first company to directly power a data center entirely with renewable energy. An AI-powered system optimizes the power output so the facility can receive a steady supply, regardless of whether the wind is blowing. Now, it wants to bring that approach to data centers in deserts around the world.

Find out how Envision plans to power the global AI boom with renewable energy.

—Cici Zhang

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The US has frozen green cards for Microsoft and other IT firms
It’s accused them of using visa fraud to replace American workers. (CNBC)
+ And suspended them from a key green-card program. (AP)
+ Adobe, Infosys, Tata, and other IT firms are also affected. (TechCrunch)
+ Microsoft says 80% of its H-1B filings involved existing staff. (BBC)

2 A drone strike in Russia knocked out a second Yandex data center
Ukraine struck and partly disabled the facility in Kaluga. (Reuters $)
+ Another Yandex data center was hit by a drone a day earlier. (CNBC)
+ Data centers have become big targets for military strikes. (Bloomberg $) 
+ They may be safer in space. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Anthropic has banned “abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude
Claude can also end conversations with repeated abuse. (Verge)
+ The policy builds on Anthropic’s research into AI welfare. (Guardian)
+ Debates over AI consciousness are a trap. (MIT Technology Review)

4 OpenAI has slashed its revenue forecast by $20 billion
The move has sparked concerns about AI investments. (Guardian)
+ What’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble? (MIT Technology Review)

5 Gene editing has revealed how a mouse embryo develops
The methods could help us understand developmental disorders. (Nature)
+ Female clones of male mice have arrived. (MIT Technology Review)

6 SpaceX has unveiled a plan to become a major mobile carrier
It’s buying $8 billion in wireless spectrum from an investment firm. (WSJ $)
+ The deal could help it challenge AT&T and Verizon. (Verge)

7 ICE has explored using a Palantir tool to investigate voter fraud
It wanted to track people suspected of voting illegally. (Wired $)

8 Peter Thiel is using biblical prophecy to argue against AI regulation
His new “Antichrist” lecture casts AI safety as a threat to freedom. (Politico)

9 MIT’s Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11, has died
She led the team that programmed Apollo’s onboard computers. (BBC)
+ And became a software pioneer in a male-dominated field. (NYT $)

10 This year’s Nobel science prizes are real-life sci-fi
They span the cosmos, the human brain, and the origins of life. (Economist $)

Quote of the day

“The White House considers anyone that uses the term, ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, ‘Super Intelligence,’ THE ENEMY!” 

—President Donald Trump adds an ominous threat to his AI rebranding strategy in a post on Truth Social, Axios reports.

One more thing

This futuristic space habitat is designed to self-assemble in orbit

More and more people are traveling beyond Earth, but the International Space Station can only hold 11 of them at a time. 

Aurelia Institute, an architecture R&D lab based in Cambridge, MA, is building a solution: a habitat that launches in compact stacks of flat tiles—and self-assembles in orbit. 

The concept may sound far-fetched, but it’s already won support from NASA. Read the full story.

—Sarah Ward

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)

+ What’s it like to fly an F-16 at 1,000 mph and pull 9G? This film finds out.
+ Meet Jimothy, the raccoon with an extra-short neck who has captured hearts across the world.
+ An indie game developer created a mesmerizing 3D cyberpunk city entirely from ASCII characters.
+ How many bags of potato chips would it take to make you float? A Taiwanese video maker has found out.